In this April 4, 2015, frame from video provided by Attorney L. Chris Stewart representing the family of Walter Lamer Scott, Scott runs away from city patrolman Michael Thomas Slager, right, in North Charleston, S.C. Slager was charged with murder on Tuesday, April 7, hours after law enforcement officials viewed the dramatic video that appears to show him shooting a fleeing Scott several times in the back. (AP Photo/Courtesy of L. Chris Stewart)Uncredited/The Associated Press
If we needed further evidence that all police officers should be required to wear body-mounted cameras, the latest deadly shooting of an unarmed black man after a routine traffic stop in North Charleston, S.C., ought to be more than enough.
Walter Scott, 50, was felled by five shots as he ran from a police officer who went for his gun rather than give chase. He handcuffed the fatally wounded man on the ground, called for assistance and then went back to pick up an object and drop it beside the victim.
We know these details only because a bystander captured it all on his cellphone camera. It was the release of that video that prompted city officials to fire the officer, Michael Thomas Slager, and charge him with murder on Tuesday.
It's hardly the first time citizens with cameras have exposed police actions that otherwise would have never come to light. Among the more notorious interactions caught on film were the assault on Rodney King in Los Angeles in 1991, the fatal tasering of Robert Dziekanski by RCMP officers at Vancouver International Airport in 2007 and the choking death of Eric Garner in Staten Island last year.
Imagine how many more instances of unrestrained force go unrecorded. That leaves the justice system, in the case of deaths where there are no eyewitnesses, with only the police version of events. In the absence of contradictory evidence, police tend to be believed.
In the latest shooting, the officer claimed he fired in self-defence because he felt threatened, after Mr. Scott allegedly attempted to grab his taser. A police statement after the incident initially relied on this version of then events. The video shows that story was fiction.
If police were wearing cameras, an officer tempted to lose his cool might behave differently. A study of camera use by the Rialto, Calif., police department showed a marked drop in the number of incidents involving use of force – and also a drop in complaints against police. Being on camera helped officer and citizen alike.
As a result of this latest incident, the mayor of North Charleston has now ordered all of the city's cops to start wearing cameras. Many U.S. police departments already put cameras on cops. And last year, an inquiry by former Canadian Supreme Court justice Frank Iacobucci called for the same. Several Canadian police departments are already running pilot projects. It's time to roll cameras out on all Canadian officers.